You Wish for a Smile
by adolt-affair
Summary: "Her smile for him, should have been her smile for you." Season 1 Faberry. Angst. Can go along with Don't Ever Lie to Me, but works as a one shot.


**A little bit of a companion piece to Don't Ever Lie to Me**

**You don't have to have read that to get this though, it works as a one shot.**

**Season 1 stuff. I was just having some angsty Faberry feelings that needed to go somewhere. Enjoy :)  
**

* * *

"Rachel!" you hear Finn yell down the hallway. Where the hell is he going? He should be walking you to class right now, hands full of your books. Why's he with _her_?

That's not even the worst of it. The memory snaps into your conscious mind before you find the power to repel it like you managed every other day.

"_Rachel!" you remember yelling across the playground. Brittany and Santana left to go play hide and seek in the woods behind school, leaving you and Rachel alone. But you weren't alone. Not when he was there._

_Rachel skipped up to Finn and whispered in his ear sweetly. You could almost feel the hot sensation in your own ear, but it was far sicker than you could remember. Rachel whispered in your ear all the time; that's what best friends did, right? At least Britt and S had that part down pat. You wondered if it felt as good for Santana to have Brittany's voice tickling her ear as it was to hear Rachel's serene humming fill yours._

_Finn smiled at her. A gross, chubby, full of cheeks smile that sent your heart to the dusty ground. Tell __**me**__, Rachel, you thought. Tell me the secret. I'll give you a hundred, better, smiles if you let me know something so special. It could have been answers to the great questions. It could have been Rachel's deepest darkest secret. And now it was under Finn's pale skin, resonating with ignorance. Since when did he deserve it?_

_She ran back up to you, grinning from ear to ear. __**Your**__ smile. It wasn't for sale, Rach, you wanted to say. Give it back._

"_What was that about?" you demanded in the voice normally censored from her ears._

"_Nothing," she hummed, "do you want to go swing?"_

"_Not with you," you spat back. Stop it, Quinn, its Rachel. _

"_I don't get it."_

"_What did you tell him?"_

"_Why does it matter?" she asked innocently. Her large brown eyes trickled in confusion. You could tell she was worried. But you couldn't figure out if it was for her secret, or for you._

"_I have to go," you started to say._

_She grabbed your hand. Large butterflies kicked at your stomach mercilessly. Her touch always did this to you. You didn't understand it, or maybe you didn't __**want **__to understand it; Santana had said her stomach lurched this way when she thought about Puck, and Brittany had described the 'tickly moths' sweeping at the edges of her tummy when Santana remembered to bring over her favorite ice cream. So why did you experience them with Rachel? Your best friend. The only one who knew the real you. The one who remembered Lucy and the summer you spent away at Fat Camp. Sure it had only been a few weeks, and letters kept you in touch, but that didn't mean you didn't miss home like crazy. And the only person who commiserated with that pain was her. She snuck cookies into your room and demanded you eat them, convinced they could cure all of your pain. And you ate one without bothering to ask why they read 'I'm Sorry.' Rachel didn't send you away. She was the only one who was sad you left._

"_Lucy," she said._

_A prim finger shot up into the air. "Quinn," you reminded her._

_Rachel winced. "Quinn," she said formally, "Puck told me he had a crush on you. So I told Finn to keep him away."_

"_Why?"_

"_Cause you're mine," she said calmly._

_You gagged on air. The hand held at your sides clenched unevenly and you remember the creeping sensation of panic stirring in your stomach. Rachel smiled again. Your smile. When Finn saw it, it wasn't for him, it was for you. The thought made your heart pump thick blood into every limb of your body, rejuvenating and reanimating it. _

"_Really?" you whispered. All she did was nod, and your heart burst just a tiny fraction more. _

Rachel was whispering into his ear now, with that same sickening smile she always had cemented on that too happy, too cheerful mug that you worked constantly to destroy. You used to look on that face with love and tenderness, but instead you choose to see anguish and hurt. So much has happened since then and everything permeated with one common denominator.

Rachel Berry.

You couldn't help but wish her hand would drop from his shoulder and turn towards you. You couldn't help but wish her smile was directed at you and made only to quell the rising anxiousness you experienced every day under the watchful eyes of Coach Sue, Santana, and your restrictive parents. You wanted her to skip down the hallway in the playful fashion of your combined youths and slide her arm through yours, pulling towards an unknown destination that didn't matter because when you got there, her arm would still be firmly through yours and whispering words of encouragement. You maybe even wanted her to confess that those mocking butterflies had attempted to conquer her insides since first meeting in kindergarten and she had finally let them win; that she was ready to admit those feelings were for you, just like you had harboring them for her.

But instead, Rachel turned one way, and Finn turned towards you. His guilty smile faded and he plastered a fake one hard onto his greasy face. He stomped down the hallway, eliminating any imagery of skipping, and came to a halt in front of you.

"Can I get your books," he asked. There was no compassion, only commitment.

"No," you said angrily and stormed the opposite direction.

He didn't even try to stop you. You heard no footsteps or even a minimal plea of your name. You were just being a bitch, right? Two hours from now, he'll show up to lunch, drop some unsatisfying granola bar on your tray—insisting it's good for the baby—and put his lumbering arm around your shoulder. You couldn't even object to this image, because it was reality.

And where would Rachel Berry be?

She'd be sitting four tables away (you memorized the spot on your first day of school) staring at your table. Her beady eyes would scour the lunchroom every few seconds in search of your next ordered-slushie attack, and then come right back. Every single time you felt her eyes, now a rich, burning chocolate unlike the creamy brown they were on that day at recess, you would secretly wonder if they were on you, and not on Finn.

No.

You wouldn't wonder, you would wish.


End file.
